1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a memory card apparatus and, more particularly, to a non-volatile memory card apparatus and a method of updating memory capacity information of a memory card apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A memory card apparatus is commonly used in digital cameras, personal digital assistants, mobile phones, MP3 players and other host electronic devices that require a non-volatile read write memory for the storage of large amounts of data.
The host electronic device reads/writes data on the memory card. Recently, flash memory has become widely used for the memory card apparatus. In particular, NAND flash memory, which is less expensive than NOR flash memory, is widely used for the memory card apparatus.
The host device requests card capacity (i.e., memory capacity) information from the memory card apparatus such as when the memory card apparatus is connected thereto or when necessary. In response to the request, the memory card apparatus transmits the memory capacity information to the host device. Typically, the memory capacity information is stored in a register together with other information and the memory card apparatus transmits a register value to the host device.
The memory used in a memory card typically includes a plurality of memory blocks. Bad memory block may be encountered during a read or write operation. For example, a block may be determined to be bad in NAND type flash memory used for a memory card such as a multimedia card (MMC) or a secure digital (SD) card.
Conventional technology focuses on storing the position of a bad memory block and removing the bad memory block from the pool of available free memory blocks. However, information regarding the capacity of bad memory blocks such as a ratio of the capacity of bad memory blocks to a total capacity is not provided.
In the conventional technology, the memory capacity information that the memory card apparatus provides to the host device is total memory capacity information that does not reflect the occurrence of the bad memory blocks and has a fixed value. Accordingly, the host device can recognize the total capacity of the memory card apparatus but cannot recognize an actual available memory capacity excluding the bad memory blocks.